Individuals often decorate their fingernails and toenails with nail decorations including paint, nail polish, gel, gel polish (hereinafter referred to collectively as “polish”) and/or nail art (e.g., glitter, stickers, decals, rhinestones, crystals, beads, etc.) for cosmetic purposes. Polish is typically applied to the nail with a brush, which coats the nail with the polish.
Polish brushes are typically incorporated into the cap of a polish bottle or container. Thus, when the cap is removed from the bottle, the brush attached thereto generally has the polish thereon. The brush may then contact a user's nail, thereby transferring the polish from the brush to the nail. While this technique is generally effective to apply polish to fingernails and toenails, it is associated with several disadvantages.
For example, using the aforementioned “freehand” technique often causes polish to be undesirably transferred to cuticles and/or skin areas adjacent to the nail on which the polish is being applied. This is particularly likely when a user uses his or her “weak hand” (e.g., when a right-handed user applied polish to his/her right hand using his/her left, “weak” hand). When the brush is applied to the nail, unsteadiness in the user's hand may cause the brush to contact the cuticle and/or skin surrounding the nail. As a result, unwanted and unsightly amounts of polish may be inadvertently applied to surrounding cuticles and/or skin. The unwanted polish may be removed from the cuticles and/or skin using, e.g., a chemical nail polish removing solution. Removing this unwanted polish requires extra time and exposes the user to potentially harmful chemicals.
In attempt to minimize unwanted polish being applied to cuticles and/or skin surrounding a user's nail, the user may spend a substantial amount of time and efforts trying to steady his/her hand to carefully apply the polish. Often, the user's efforts are in vain, and he/she must invest even more time and energy into cleaning and touching up his/her nails and adjacent cuticles and/or skin.
Furthermore, the unsteadiness in a user's hand may result in an uneven application of polish on the user's nail. Often, the finished polish application looks jagged, rough, and/or dull. Thus, it is difficult for a user to achieve a smooth, shiny, “professional-looking” polish application at home.
Likewise, a “freehand” technique is also often used to apply nail art to a user's nail. Because the area of a nail bed is quite small, accurate placement of a piece of nail art is crucial in achieving a desired look or design. However, unsteadiness in a user's hand—particularly a user's “weak” hand—often causes the placement piece of nail art to be at least slightly off, in an undesired location on the user's nail. Moving the piece of nail art to the desired location can be difficult, especially when the piece of nail art is being applied over a coat of polish. Thus, correcting the placement of the piece of nail art may require a user to remove the nail art and polish and restart the entire process, which may be frustrating and inefficient.
Thus, there exists a need for an improved apparatus and method of applying polish and nail art to nails that result in more efficient, desirable results.